ship. In 1768, he was elected a fellow of his college; and, in 1770 and 1771, he was, successively, first member's prizeman, as author of the best Latin

prize essay. Being destined for the church, he, in the latter year, took holy orders, and was appointed to the curacy of Denham, near Uxbridge. During the next two years he acted in the capacity of tutor to the present Duke of Marlborough (then Marquess of Blandford). In 1775, he accompanied the late Earl of Pembroke (then Lord Herbert), in a tour through France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. His travels in the last-named country formed the subject of his first publication, under the title of Sketches on the Natural, Civil, and Political State of Switzerland; followed by a second edition, in three volumes, octavo, under the title of Travels in Switzerland, and the Country of the Grisons; and to the fourth and last edition of the same work, after the subjugation of Switzerland by the French republic, he prefixed a spirited and accurate account of that memorable revolution. Having extended his tour to Russia, he published, in 1780, a History of Russian Discoveries, which he afterwards brought down to the time of Vancouver, and published in a new form, which went through four editions. This work was followed, in 1784, by the publication of his Travels in Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, the result of further observations made during his tour through the northern parts of Europe. Shortly after its appearance, he was appointed, successively, travelling tutor to the late Samuel Whitbread, Esq., and to Mr. Portman, with whom he travelled, respectively, for about a twelvemonth. In 1786, he was presented to the vicarages of Kingston-upon-Thames, and Richmond, by the Society of King's College, Cambridge; which, however, he resigned in 1788, for the rectory of Bennington. In 1794, he again visited the continent; and travelled in company with the son of the Marquess Cornwallis, whose father rewarded him, on his return, with the chaplaincy of the garrison of Portsmouth, which he subsequently exchanged for that of the Tower. In 1798, appeared his Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford, illustrated with original correspond

ence, authentic papers, &c.; which were finally published in four volumes, octavo; with a selection of the most curious documents: and, in 1802, in one volume, quarto, as a continuation of those of his brother, he printed Memoirs of Horatio, Lord Walpole. Shortly after the former year, he was presented, successively, to the rectory of Stourton, and of Fovant, in Wiltshire, of which county he had been previously appointed archdeacon, and a canon residentiary of Salisbury Cathedral. In 1807, he published his History of the House of Austria, from the foundation of the Monarchy, by Rodolph of Hapsburg, in the thirteenth century, to the death of the late Emperor, Leopold the Second, with maps and geological tables, in three volumes, quarto. This work gained him considerable credit, and procured him the honour of a visit from the Austrian princes, the Archdukes John and Leopold, then travelling through the western parts of England; who expressed their surprise at his publication of facts which they had supposed to be known only to members of the imperial family. In 1813, appeared, in three volumes, quarto, his Historical Memoirs of the Kings of Spain, of the House of Bourbon; a work drawn from an extensive collection of rare and original documents, which opened to the world a mine of history, that up to that time had remained unexplored. He shortly after undertook the Memoirs of John, Duke of Marlborough, principally drawn from the collection of papers preserved at Blenheim, of which the three volumes appeared, successively, in 1817, 1818, and 1819. Before the whole was completed, he lost his eyesight, a privation which did not prevent him from preparing for press The Private and Original Correspondence of the Duke of Shrewsbury, illustrated with narratives, historical and biographical, which appeared, in one volume, quarto, in 1821. After a brief interval of time, he began the Memoirs of the Administration of the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, intended as a sequel to the Memoirs of Sir Robert and Lord Walpole, in the composition of which he had so far persevered, as to leave it nearly ready for the press at the time of his decease, which happened in June, 1828.

He was of middle stature, corpulent, and erect; and preserved, to the last, his strength, both of body and mind. No man, perhaps, was ever more universally esteemed. As a divine he was exemplary; but is said to have regretted, in his latter days, that he had not written more largely in connexion with his sacred duties; his published religious compositions being few and unimportant, though he was indefatigable in his search after religious knowledge and truth. As a traveller, his writings are still valuable, and at the period that they appeared, were deservedly popular; but it is as a biographer and a historian that his name will descend to posterity, as one of the most indefatigable, extensive, and useful writers that this or any other country can boast of having produced. For his merits in this branch of literature, he was presented with one of the three gold medals, placed at the disposal of the Royal Society of Literature by George the Fourth.

"Few writers of the present age," observes his biographer, in the Annual Obituary, citing other authorities, "have conferred more important and lasting

obligations on English literature than the venerable person who is the subject of this memoir. His biographical works, on which his reputation principally rests, are, in effect, contributions to the modern history, not only of this country, but of Europe, derived from sources not accessible to the ordinary historian." Besides the works already named, he published The Literary Life and Select Works of Benjamin Stillingfleet, Esq., in three volumes, octavo; The Lives of Handel and Smith, in one volume, quarto; two pamphlets on the Nature of Tithes, addressed to J. Bennett, Esq., member of parliament for Wilts; A Vindication of the Celts: an edition of Gay's Fables, with notes; a volume of Miscellaneous Tracts, comprising an Account of the Prisons and Hospitals in Russia, Sweden, and Denmark; A Letter on the Secret Tribunal of Westphalia; and Sketches of the Lives of Corregio and Parmegiano.

He married, in 1803, Eleanora, daughter of Walter Shairp, Esq., consulgeneral of Russia, and relict of Thomas Yieldham, Esq., of the British Factory at St. Petersburgh; but it does not appear that he left any issue.

WILLIAM HAZLITT, the son of a dissenting minister, who, after holding a situation in the University of Glasgow, passed nine years in America, was born at New Shropshire, about the year 1750. He was educated at the Unitarian College, at Hackney, and commenced life as an artist, but not with sufficient success to induce him to practise it as a profession; though he is said to have executed some copies from Titian and Raphael, in the very first style, and otherwise to have shewn very high powers as a painter. He, however, thought fit to throw down the pencil for the pen, and instead of painting pictures, it became his delight to criticise them; and it must be allowed, that in his critical strictures, when his strong and violent prejudices stood not in the way of justice, he was one of the most judicious, able, and powerful

writers of his time. After having made various contributions to the periodical journals, he published An Essay on the Principles of Human Action, which was succeeded by two octavo volumes, entitled The Eloquence of the British Senate; being a selection of the best speeches of the most distinguished parliamentary speakers, from the beginning of the reign of Charles the First, to the present time; with notes, biographical, critical and explanatory.

He appears at this time to have been engaged as parliamentary reporter for some of the daily newspapers; and from this laborious but useful drudgery, says a writer of his life in The Literary Chronicle for 1826, "he was promoted to purveyor of literary critiques, and other occasional paragraphs." In 1810, he published A New and Improved English Grammar, for the use of

schools; in which the discoveries of Mr. Horne Tooke, and other modern writers, on the formation of language, are for the first time incorporated. To which was added, A New Guide to the English Tongue, by Edward Baldwyn, who published a smaller abridgment of Mr. Hazlitt's book in 1812. His next performances appeared in a series of weekly essays, which he wrote in The Examiner, in conjunction with Mr. Leigh Hunt, and afterwards published them under the title of The Round Table, &c. They were succeeded by his Characters of Shakspeare's Plays, A View of the English Stage, and some Lectures on English Poetry, which he had delivered at the Surrey Institution in 1818. The result of his collections from various periodical works, appeared under the titles of Table Talk, The Spirit of the Age, and The Plain Speaker, which are still popular. He wrote several other works of minor importance, and was one of the writers in The Edinburgh Review, and in the Supplement to The Encyclopædia Britannica. His largest and most famous work appeared in 1828, The Life of Napoleon, in four volumes; a production which has raised him to a very high rank among the philosophers and historians of the pre

sent age.

Mr. Hazlitt is, in his peculiar walk of literature, unrivalled; no man has produced so many miscellaneous works, with so little of common-place matter, or exhibiting such frequent marks of acute and profound thought. He has not much imagination or humour, though he can appreciate them in others; but he has the art of probing a subject to its depths, and of dealing with it in a manner that places him in the very first rank of philosophical critics. His Essays are full of wisdom, and it is almost impossible to rise from a perusal of them without the acquisition of some new and striking ideas. His style is, upon the whole, clear, firm, and eloquent; but he is sometimes too redundant of ornament.

Mr. Hazlitt, who married a sister of Dr. Stoddart, has never been able to realize, by his pen, sufficient to place him out of the reach of pecuniary difficulties, and he is, at this time, suffering

He

both from ill health and poverty. is said, by his friends, to be of a generous, warm-hearted, but impetuous disposition; and, with all his violent prejudices, to be candid and impartial. The attacks made upon him in Blackwood's Magazine he has sometimes mentioned with most bitter resentment; but how he could still admire an enemy, the following anecdote will show: A friend having read to him a passage in favour of Napoleon from Blackwood, he exclaimed, "That's good, by Heaven! that's fine! I forgive 'em all they've said of me."-Mr. Hazlitt's favourite amusement used to be rackets, and he would often spend more time at the Tennis Court than was consistent with his necessities. "The racket," it has been said, "was the only instrument with which he ever desired to conquer;" and it was only for his wants that he resorted to the pen. Many of his productions were composed at a small public house on the edge of Salisbury Plain, whither he would retire, and shut himself up in solitude till he had got through a volume. He is remarkably temperate, and, for the last fifteen years of his life, has drank nothing but water. In conversation no man is more sensible or entertaining; and among a variety of anecdote, he occasionally tells one of himself. The following is one of the most characteristic: Miscalculating his expenses, he, one day, found himself, at Stamford, reduced almost to his last shilling. He set off to walk to Cambridge, but having a pair of new boots on, they gave him acute pain. In this predicament, he tried at twenty different places to exchange them for a pair of shoes, or slippers, of any sort, but no one would accommodate him. He made this a charge against the English-" though they would have got treble the value by exchanging," said he," they would not do it, because it would have been useful to me." Perhaps," said some one, jestingly, "they did not know that you came honestly by them."-"Ah! true," said Hazlitt; "that shakes my theory in this respect, if it be true; but then it corroborates another part of it; so the fact is valuable either way, there is always a want of liberality, either in their thoughts or actions."

THOMAS

aine

Ste

schcoumaster n Cle Mira At the age of ine Jeart, le va faced it dle school which 31. fer ad berntended; aut de slowed wich te casary for earning, Gat se sent cacaso das füller Es a t. 107, incapacie of improvement. Ma Chatterton, says Dr. Gregory, in ne of the subject of our memoir. I was rendered extremely undaspy the apparently tarty understanding of her son, da ne “ika in wove, exprewed herself, with the laminated capitals of an oid musical manuscript in French, which enabled her, by ang advantage of the momentary passion, to nirate him in the alphabet. afterwards taught him to read out of a black-letter Eie; and this circumstance, in conjunction with the former, is supposed to have inspired him with that fondness for antiquities which he subsequently displayed. At eight years of age, he was removed to Colston's charity-school, where he remained for some time andistinguished, except by a pensive gravity of demeanour, and a thirst for pre-eminence over his playmates. This he exhibited, says his sister, even before he was five years old; and not long afterwards, her brother being asked what device he would have painted on a small present of earthenware about to be made to him, "Paint me," he is said to have replied, an angel, with wings, and a trumpet, to trumpet my name over the world."

It was not, however, until his tenth year, that he acquired a taste for readIng; for which he suddenly imbibed such a relish, that he devoted his little pocket-money to the hire of books from a bibrary, and borrowed others as he had opportunity. Before he was twelve he had gone through about seventy volumes in this manner, consisting chiefly of history and divinity; and, about the same time, he appears to have filled with poetry a pocket-book, which had been presented to him by his sister as a new-year's gift. Among these verses,

ceremony, and an ais aws femings prepactory L In Jay, MT, K with time he possessed a knowledge of drawing and mise, in alition to his acher acrements. he was articled to Mr. Lambert, an attorney at Bristol, where the ociv ut dis master had to find with in, be the first year, was the sending an acusive anonymous letter to tis late schoolmaster, of which he was discovered to be the author, from his inability to disguise his own hand-writing so successly as he did afterwards.

As a preface to the history of Chatterton's literary impostures, which commenced about this time, a short sketch W

be necessary of the circumstances which gave rise to them. It was well known at Bristol, that in the church of St. Mary, Redclife, an old chest had been opened, about 1727, for the purpose of searching for some title deeds, and that, since that time, a number of other manuscripts, being left exposed to casuai depredation, had, at various times, been taken away. The uncle of Chatterton's father being sexton to the church, enabled his nephew to enter it freely; and, upon these occasions, he removed baskets full of parchments, of which, however, he made no other use than to cover books. A thread-paper belonging to his mother, which had been formed out of one of these parcnments, attracted the notice of young Chatterton, soon after the commencement of his clerkship; and his curiosity was so excited, that he obtained a remaining hoard of them yet unused, and ultimately acquired possession of all that remained in the old chest, and in his mother's house. His answer to inquiries on the subject was, "that he had a treasure, and was so glad nothing could be like it." The parchments, he said, consisted of poetical and other compositions, by Mr. Canynge and Thomas

Rowley, whom our author, at first, called a monk, and afterwards a secular priest of the fifteenth century.

Thus prepared for carrying on his system of literary imposture, he, on the opening of the new bridge at Bristol, in October, 1768, drew up a paper, entitled A Description of the Fryars first passing over the Old Bridge, taken from an ancient Manuscript. It was inserted in Farley's Bristol Journal, and the authorship was traced to Chatterton; who, being questioned in an authoritative tone, haughtily refused to give any account. Milder usage at length induced him to enter into an explanation; and, after some prevarication, he asserted that he had received the paper in question from his father, who had found it, with several others, in Redcliffe Church. The report that he was in possession of the poetry of Canynge and Rowley was now spread about; and coming to the ears of Mr. Catcott, an inhabitant of Bristol, of an inquiring turn, he procured an introduction to Chatterton, who furnished him, gratuitously, with various poetical pieces under the name of Rowley. These were communicated to Mr. Barrett, a surgeon, then employed in writing a History of Bristol, into which he introduced several of the above fragments, by the permission of our author, who was, in return, occasionally supplied with money, and introduced into company. He also studied surgery, for a short time, under Mr. Barrett, and would talk, says Mr. Thistlethwayte, "of Galen, Hippocrates, and Paracelsus, with all the confidence and familiarity of a modern empiric." His favourite studies, however, were heraldry and English antiquities; and one of his chief occupations was in making a collection of old English words from the glossaries of Chaucer and others. During these pursuits, he employed his pen in writing satirical essays, in prose and verse; and, about the same period, gave way to fits of poetical enthusiasm, by wandering about Redcliffe meadows, talking of the productions of Rowley, and setting up at night to compose poems at the full of the moon. "He was always," says Mr. Smith, extremely fond of walking in the fields; and would sometimes say to me, "come, you and I will take a walk in the meadow. I have got the cleverest thing

for you imaginable. It is worth halfa-crown merely to have a sight of it, and to hear me read it to you." This he would generally do in one particular spot, within view of the church, before which he would sometimes lie down, keeping his eyes fixed upon it in a kind of trance.

In 1769, he contributed several papers to The Town and Country Magazine, among which were some extracts from the pretended Rowley, entitled Saxon Poems, written in the style of Ossian, and subscribed with Chatterton's usual signature of Dunhelmus Bristoliensis. But his most celebrated attempt at imposture, in this year, was an offer to furnish Horace Walpole with some accounts of a series of eminent painters who had flourished at Bristol, at the same time enclosing two small specimens of the Rowley poems. Mr. Walpole returned a very polite reply, requesting further information; and, in answer, was informed of the circumstances of Chatterton, who hinted a wish that the former would free him from an irksome profession, and place him in a situation where he might pursue the natural bias of his genius. In the mean time, however, Gray and Mason having pronounced the poems sent to Walpole to be forgeries, the latter, who, nevertheless, could not, as he himself confesses, help admiring the spirit of poetry displayed in them, wrote a cold monitory letter to our author, advising him to apply himself to his profession. Incensed at this, he demanded the immediate return of his manuscripts, which Walpole enclosed in a blank cover, after his return from a visit to Paris, when he found another letter from Chatterton, peremptorily requiring the papers, and telling Walpole "that he would not have dared to use him so, had he not been acquainted with the narrowness of his circumstances." Here their correspondence ended, and on these circumstances alone is the charge founded against Mr. Walpole of barbarously neglecting, and finally causing the death of, Chatterton. Mr. Walpole, observes Dr. Gregory, afterwards regretted that he had not seen this extraordinary youth, and that he did not pay a more favourable attention to his correspondence; but to ascribe to Mr. Walpole's neglect the dreadful catastrophe which happened at the dis